Come on feel the noise at Book Soup this week as Grover Jackson, president of GJ2 Guitars, gives away the first guitar in his new line during a book-signing event for “Randy Rhoads” by Andrew Klein and Steven Rosen. The event coincides with the 30th anniversary of Rhoads' tragic death at age 25 in a plane crash in Florida in 1982. The rock guitarist, best known for his neo-classical stylings, played with metal band Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne recording such hits “Crazy Train” and “Flying High Again.” The 400-page biography is filled with hundreds of rare photographs and memorabilia.

Welcome to the first edition of the Book Trailer Screening Room. Today we bring you Andrew McCarthy, Antoine Wilson and Jonathan Evison. McCarthy is yes, the same Andrew McCarthy who was a heartthrob in the 1980s. In recent years, he's mixed travel writing -- serious, award-winning travel writing -- in with his career as an actor. And his acting talents show in the trailer for his first book, "The Longest Way Home. " There he sits, anxious in the face of his impending nuptials; there he goes, hiking wild jungles (scary crocodiles!

With several authors in town this week promoting their newly released fantasy titles, it almost seems fitting to declare it Fantasy Week in L.A. Bookland. It may not have the bite of Shark Week, but Angelenos will have their pick of sword battles, assassins and apparitions from R.A. Salvatore, (“Charon's Claw”), Sarah Maas (“Throne of Glass”) and Sandi Tan, who will be signing copies of her supernatural ghost story, “The Black Isle,” at 4 p.m. Saturday at Vroman's in Pasadena.

Does anyone really know what heaven looks like? For ages, artists have expressed their interpretations on canvas and authors have penned numerous books on their journeys to the hereafter. Recent titles include Mary C. Neal's “To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story” and Todd Burpo's “Heaven Is for Real,” which spent 70 weeks on the L.A. Times bestsellers list. In the story of a 4-year-old boy's visit to heaven during emergency surgery, the artwork of 8-year-old Akiane Kramarik (who also had a near-death experience)

Author J.K. Rowling has reached a level of popularity few writers will ever see. Her seven-book "Harry Potter" series, while written for children, soared onto bestseller lists. Hollywood's successful film adaptations have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. And Forbes tallies Rowling's net worth at over $1 billion. Even that, however, is not enough to guarantee artistic success. In September, Rowling will publish her first novel for adults. "The Casual Vacancy" is a mystery set in suburban England; publisher Little, Brown describes the 512-page novel as "a big book about a small town.

One of the most beloved fabulist novelists working today, Jeanette Winterson tackles her own reality in her new memoir, "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" On a search for her biological mother, Winterson confronts the various paths her childhood took, from being raised by a religious zealot who kept a gun in the dresser to growing up in a rough industrial town in England. Pondering her sexuality and other core parts of her identity, the author studies what experiences formed her and who she might've become without her past.

BOOKS Debut novelist Ramona Ausubel has her characters forget time and history in "No One Is Here Except All of Us. " It's 1939, and the families of a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war closing in around them. At the suggestion of a mysterious stranger who washes up on the riverbank, they reassign spouses, children and other marks of familial history in an attempt to keep the tides of change at bay. She will be reading and signing her novel. Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave. 7:30 p.m. Fri. Free.